@ LATV Fest: Will 4G networks support the flood of content to come?

LOS ANGELES — A recurring theme kept cropping up here at the LATV Fest yesterday whenever discussion broached upon the topic of professional content on mobile networks: will 4G actually deliver on 3G’s promise?
“I remember having the same discussion when we were on 2G networks,” said Neeraj Choubey, general manager of tablets at Dell Inc. (DELL). “We’ve been hearing the same story for 15 years.”
Currently, upwards of 75% of all traffic on NTT DoCoMo Inc.’s network is consumed by video, said Adrian Van Meerbeeck, the company’s VP of strategy and research at the company’s U.S. subsidiary.
“The reason we’re going to 4G is because we know there’s going to be like 10 times the amount of video,” he said. With more content from big studios on the mobile horizon, networks will need to reach the promising speeds of 4G to stay in the game, he added.
“Traffic on the mobile Internet continues to grow,” said Natalie Farsi, head of mobile at Warner Bros. “We have to look at the impact higher speeds are going to have on the mobile Internet.”
While many apps mirror content that’s already available online, the studio is tracking more video and photo traffic on its apps while breaking news and live content are very much led by the Internet, Faris said.
“It’s interesting. There’s toggling going on between the app and the mobile Internet,” she added.
The changing strategy at Apple
Warner Bros. has biweekly calls with Apple Inc. (AAPL), according to Farsi, and only after the iPad was launched did the iPhone begin changing its strategy when it comes to apps, she added.
“Their attitude has changed,” Farsi said, adding that Apple began embracing the Internet so long as Adobe Systems (ADBE) isn’t part of the equation. Just the same, however, Apple wants developers to create unique use-cases for their apps and not simply just mirror what’s available online, Farsi continued.
“I can tell you that there is demand for people to just have the Internet,” Choubey said. “People say ‘I want the web experience on my mobile.’”
As an avid backer of Android, it only makes sense that Dell would push for the full spectrum of the Internet on mobile as a rallying cry and score points over Android’s more recent support for Flash. Plus, Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen sits on Dell’s board of directors.
“Google and Android have always pushed the cloud-based strategy and an enhanced web browsing experience,” Choubey added.
Flash venting session
While Nokia Corp. (NOK) has supported Flash on many of its devices for years now, the company’s director of the preloads business, Jonathan Sharp, said Flash carries its own unique set of problems.
“The thing about Flash is that we have all kinds of costs associated with Flash,” he said, adding that Nokia pays licensing fees for the technology, which is not an open standard.
“It’s a cathartic venting session. It’s an issue we deal with everyday. It’s costly for us to be on all these platforms,” Farsi said. “It is a big challenge for any company that produces content and on top of it you have all these versions.”
While she considers herself a “huge fan of the mobile Internet,” there’s still a lot of innovation that needs to happen before web sites are optimized for the full gamut of devices and operating systems available today.
The way Choubey sees it, consumers simply want Flash-based content to work on their mobile phones. “it’s all about what the customers want and if customers want and customers want to access the Internet the way it is,” he said.